Anyone here own rental property?
 

What service do you use to run background check on prospective renters? We bought three houses to rent and plan on buying several more...so any tips are appreciated.

I get all my tenants from the Department of Social Services.

Low income familes, but the checks arrive from the State each month.

On time, every time.

Yah, we are doing some of that.

I've actually heard that's one of the best routes to go. What kind of unit do you have?

They are single and double family houses in the absolute worst neighborhood in my city.

Last time I was down there I saw dope deals going down right on the street while two cops were parked and standing not 50 feet away.

I don't even like to go down that way...let alone live there.

You don't have to buy houses in shitty neighborhoods to do Section 8. I know plenty of people that have houses in decent neighborhoods they rent out to Section 8 clients.

I don't pass them up when they only cost $1500 :Graucho

I shit you not. I've paid this for 2 houses now. The banks want nothing to do with them.

Remember this. Credit is a reflection of YOURSELF. If someone has bad credit do not do business with them.

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No thanks...houses like that are just a liability. I consider anything below $100k to be ghetto and real estate is cheap in this state.

So far I've used no service, only my own judgement. The last time I had to put an ad in the paper for my upstairs apartment was over 6 years ago actually. I had over 25 replies from my one-day ad, about 5 of those parties showed up to view the place right away, and I chose the best applicant based on what I saw from those meetings. I also get 2 references from the applicant, and I actually phone those references. One of the references has to be their previous landlord, unless of course they were living at home with their parents. Then I phone the parents.

I've had very good luck with tenants so far, it's been 10 years now that I've been renting out units. But it helps that I live right here in the house, I'm not an absentee landlord.

To be a property manager or landlord you really must be a good judge of character. Not *think* you are a good judge of character, you actually have to *BE* one. There are a lot of people out there who think they are a good judge of character who couldn't spot a potential nutcase if their life depended on it.

There are alot of good online backround and credit checking services. Make sure you do both checks on the prospective tenants if it is a higher end house.You will need a completed rental applications signed by the prospective tenants, and you will have to fax it to them before they will run the searches for you. I own 3 rental properties and i have had no problems with tenants because i do my homework and check everything twice to make sure im renting to good stable tenants. Im now looking to purchase ghetto properties and that a totally different story.

I use http://www.landlordconnection.com/ which now do all 50 states.

That's ridiculous. Good people get into difficult financial circumstances due to factors beyond their control all the time. Divorce, business failures, job displacements, illness, etc.

40% of the credit files in America have bad marks in them by the way so you're suggesting half the country should be left out of the credit markets?

You price credit by risk. Good credit gets better rates, bad credit pays higher rates for the risks assumed by the lender. But you don't just blow off people with credit problems.

Hey Man, You are welcome to hit me up and I can find out from my wife who she uses.

We don't touch section 8. We have heard way to many horror stories. First of all almost every applicant from section 8 has tons of kids, etc. (Generalization but true in our cases) You don't want section 8 in your nice rentals (of course if they aren't nice then fuckit - but ours are all pretty decent).

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KRL - I agree with you but I would rather not take the chance when there are plenty of good renters out there with good credit scores. We don't take anyone with bad credit unless they want to put down about 3 months rent. I think it just depends on supply and demand. In most parts of FL right now there are plenty of good renters with good scores.